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Monday, March 7, 2011

10m open to the States for the ARRL DX contest

As many of you will know, I am mostly a non-competitive contester. Now there's an oxymoron if ever I heard one - non-competitive contesting!! (No, I did not call you a moron). Over the weekend I decided to "dip in and out of" the ARRL DX SSB contest, and it was a thoroughly pleasant experience.

I ended up with a respectable 152 QSOs in my log, which is not bad considering I was away from the shack most of the weekend ! On Sunday afternoon the 10 metre band opened nicely to the States (as predicted by my good self in a recent post (see below!)) and with just 100 watts and my trusty old Antron 99 I was able to work almost everything that I could hear, with only one exception, and most of them heard me on my first call. Canada, believe it or not, was a new country for me on 10 metres, so I was delighted to nab some of the VE's while the band was open. It didn't close on my end until after half past six in the evening, so then I switched to 15 metres where there was action until half past eight. And even then 20 metres was still wide open and my last contact was 21.43 into Pennsylvania. At that stage I had to call it a night because I had an early start in work this morning. I was at the desk in Dundalk at 8.25am, bright as a button. (Yeah right!)

Anyway, I hope you call had a nice time in the ARRL contest. I heard lots and lots of EI stations being worked when I was at the radio, and it was very pleasing to hear such a high level of Echo India participation. So well done to all. By the way, right now the Solar Flux Index is 143 so expect more action on 10 metres tomorrow.